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The Israeli troop withdrawal was a moment of victory for Hezbollah, but the group has also placed the party in a quandary for the first time, which it has had to wrestle with before a growing audience of critics.

Nicholas Blanford is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs.

Blanford covers the politics and security affairs of Lebanon and Syria. He is an acknowledged expert on Lebanese Hezbollah, particularly the organization’s evolving military activities, which have remained a focus of his work for two decades.

Blanford is a Beirut-based consultant and a defense and security correspondent for IHS/Jane’s. Previously, he was the Beirut correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor. In addition, he wrote regularly for The Times (London), The Daily Star (Beirut), and Al-Jazeera America. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, USA Today, and The National (Abu Dhabi).

Based in Lebanon since 1994, he has also reported from Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Morocco. He regularly participates in seminars and conferences and has briefed government agencies and militaries on issues related to the Levant. He has also participated in Track II discussions connected to the Middle East peace process.

Blanford is the author of “Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel” (Random House, 2011); and “Killing Mr Lebanon: The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and its Impact on the Middle East” (IB Tauris, 2006). He wrote the Lebanon chapter in “The Islamists Are Coming: Who They Really Are,” ed. Robin Wright (Woodrow Wilson Center, 2012); and the introductory essay to “The Voice of Hizbullah: The Speeches of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah” (Verso, 2007).

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